Open Educational Resources

What are Open Educational Resources?

Open Educational Resources are educational materials offered freely and openly for anyone to use. They are usually licensed to allow sharing, remixing, or customization. The resources can include textbooks, full courses, course materials, modules, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other resources used to support access to knowledge.

The image used for the "5 Rs of OER" was retrieved from Making Open Educational Resources: A Guide for Students by Students and is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Did you Know?

The average student should budget $1298 a year for books and supplies. - College Board

64.2% of students have chosen not to purchase a textbook because it was too expensive. - 2018 Student Textbook and Course Materials Survey 

Textbook costs have risen more than 1,000 percent since the 1970's. - NBC

OER Impact

The use of Open Educational Resources (OER) can benefit students and instructors. Research has shown that:

• The use of OER can save students money without negatively impacting learning outcomes.

• OER adoption improves end-of-course grades and decreases course withdrawals and the grades of D and F (DFW grades). 

At the University of South Carolina, the use of OER and other freely-available materials has saved students over $2,500,000 since 2015.